Skills

Dear The Kitchn,I make a habit of going to the farmer’s market, even in the cold months. I want to support the farmers and buy their onions, squash, and garlic. But, as you can see in this picture, many of the onions I’m buying at the farmer’s market are brown in the middle and have a slightly spoiled smell. Is there something I can look for when shopping for onions so that I avoid these spoiled specimens? Thanks for your help,RPRP,Thanks for your question.

Pepino melons are not really melons; they are the fruit of a South American evergreen and actually related to the tomato and the eggplant. Sometimes they are called tree melons, or melon pears. They have been cropping up in the grocery store lately and we were intrigued by the beautiful stripes and teardrop shape. The melon is about the size of a hand, almond-shaped and firm. It will usually have beautiful purple streaks on a yellow skin.

The first time we saw a Cape gooseberry, it was on someone’s blog, and it looked like a perfect yellow egg yolk encased in paper leaves. We really thought someone took a photo of an egg yolk. It wasn’t, of course – it was a Cape gooseberry. Cape gooseberries are native to South America, and they’re closely related to the tomatilla – which makes sense, since they look like tiny tomatillas, swaddled in tissue leaves.

Souse [sows] n. Variety of and term for head cheese in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.Souse is a variety of head cheese, usually specific to the Pennsylvania Dutch. They make their head cheese from the pickled meat of often otherwise unused animal parts (usually pork). These often include the feet, head, tongue, and heart.The word itself probably comes from the Germanic souce, or pickling juice, which is related to sulza, or brine.Do you eat head cheese?

Pouring ingredients into a running standing mixer is a big challenge. It is too awkward to push ingredients from a standard mixing bowl into a running Kitchen Aid. We’ve struggled with this since we first bought our mixers and we’re not the only ones . . . We watch carefully when TV chefs pour ingredients into their whirring, running standing mixers. Celebrity chefs struggle with this little detail too.

We went to lunch last week and had some crispy fries with our sandwich – but they weren’t made out of potato. They were labeled “yucca” fries on the menu, and a sharp-eyed friend pointed out that this had to be wrong. The potato-like starch that you find in Latino cuisines and in some trendy bistros nowadays is cassava or Manihot esculenta, a native of South America and consumed in large quantities throughout Latin America, Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean.

Potatoes and onions are great companions in potato salad and frittata, but potatoes and onions should be stored separately. That’s the advice reader RB shared on the Open Thread over the weekend. An eHow expert agrees: “Avoid storing potatoes with onions because, when close together, they produce gases that spoil both. ” Bigspud.com says, “First and most important, don’t put [potatoes] anywhere near onions. Onions will make potatoes deteriorate in a hurry.

Cartouche [kär too sh] n. Circle of greaseproof parchment used to cover a dish while poaching or simmering. Poaching is a quick way to cook certain cuts of meat – especially fish and poultry. It usually involves cooking the food in a small amount of sauce or liquid, often covered by a cartouche. The cartouche serves two purposes: it keeps the small amount of liquid in a poached dish from evaporating too quickly, and it prevents that unpleasant skin from forming on the top of a sauce.

Braise [BRAYSE] v. To fry food then cook it slowly in liquid in a closed vessel. We’ve got braising on our minds around here, for reasons to be revealed shortly, so we went back to our Harold McGee to read up on all things braising. The word braise originated in the 18th century, coming from the French word for “live coals,” which were piled under and on top of a closed cooking pot.

Jamie Oliver’s new cookbook and television show bring us Jamie’s Italy. Jamie crosses Italy to find homecooks and sends their recipes on to us. Jamie’s trip reminds us that flexibility and simplicity are at the heart of cooking at home. If you want to serve stuffed lemons today, but don’t have anchovy filets, how about some olive paste instead? Basil leaves bring freshness and color, but parsley or arugula might do in a pinch.

On my huge bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce it says very clearly: “Refrigerate after opening.” And yet I don’t. My Asian friend, an amateur chef, never does. I go to Chinese restaurants and there is soy sauce sitting out on every table. So what’s the deal? Are you supposed to refrigerate or not? I did a little research and discovered that soy sauce is fine at room temperature. It’s just that it will keep its flavor and freshness longer when refrigerated.

Chances are you’ve seen them at the farmers’ market lately. Like pomegranates, pumpkins, apples and pears, fall is the season for this somewhat perplexing fruit known as a persimmon. Usually some shade of orange and resembling a tomato with a sort of brown flower bud in leiu of a stem, persimmons are likely conjur a jumble of questions to swirl though the heads of those unfamilar with them. Are they a fruit? Are they a vegetable?

Friandise [free-yawn-DEEZ]n. A small sweet or plate of sweets served at the very end of a meal. Friandise seems to be used interchangeably with mignardise, another French word for the tiny pastries and confections offered after the dessert course or during tea. Sometimes the word is used to refer to the whole assortment, and sometimes to the individual sweets.

Duxelles [dook-SEHL, deu-SEHL]n. A thick mixture of minced mushrooms and shallots slowly cooked with butter and herbs, used for flavoring soups and sauces and for fillings. This admittedly unphotogenic mushroom mixture is a deceptively simple way to add rich, intense flavor to many dishes, and it’s easy to make ahead and have on hand for quick appetizers. Wrap a teaspoonful in puff pastry and bake, or stuff into chicken breasts.

If you don’t have twelve hours to marinate meat, using a little bit of kiwi can make tender whatever you’re choosing to cook in minutes. I’m not sure how it started, but my mom and every other Korean mom I know rub kiwi pulp on thin strips of flanken-style short ribs before dunking the ribs in a sweet soy sauce and garlic mixture, and grilling them to charred perfection.